Behind the Shock Machine (48 page)

38.
    Subject 2013 was instructed to continue twenty-six times; subjects 2026 and 2005, fourteen times each; Subject 2032, eleven times; Subject 2003, nine times; and Subject 2009, eight times. Williams’s interaction with Subject 2014 ended in an “argument,” Subject 2028 paced and argued with Williams, and Subject 2040 argued with him fourteen times. SMP, box 122. The women described being “railroaded” by Williams in the long interviews, April 25, 1963, 38.

39.
    SMP, box 44.

40.
    Arthur G. Miller,
The Obedience Experiments: A Case Study of Controversy in Social Science
(New York: Praeger, 1986), 7.

41.
    Blass,
Man Who Shocked the World
, 85.

42.
    Russell, “Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority Experiments,” 173.

43.
    Stanley Milgram, “Behavioral Study of Obedience,”
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
67, no. 4 (1963): 374.

44.
    Alan Elms, “Keeping Deception Honest: Justifying Conditions for Social Scientific Research Stratagems,” in
Ethical Issues in Social Science Research
, ed. Tom Beauchamp et al. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 241.

45.
    Elliot Aronson noted the concept of “
bubbe
psychology” in “Adventures in Experimental Social Psychology: Roots, Branches, and Sticky Leaves,” in
Reflections on 100 Years of Experimental Social Psychology
, ed. Aroldo Rodrigues and Robert Levine (New York: Basic, 1999), 91.

46.
    Subject 2026 and Subject 2004 in the long interviews, April 25, 1963, 22, 23, 25.

47.
    Subject 2003, SMP, box 44.

48.
    Long interviews, April 25, 1963, 12, 16, 19, 43, 44.

49.
    See Diana Baumrind, “Research Using Intentional Deception: Ethical Issues Revisited,”
American Psychologist
, 40, no. 2 (February 1985): 165–74.

50.
    SMP, box 44.

5. DISOBEDIENCE

1.
     Milgram in fact tested a similar scenario in his lab: condition 7. For a full description, see “Condition 7, Groups for Disobedience,” SMP, box 46, folder 163.

2.
     Stanley Milgram,
Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View
(London: Tavistock, 1974), 172.

3.
     The subject’s letter and Milgram’s response are in SMP, box 1a, folder 3.

4.
     Ibid.

5.
     Subjects 408, 502, 722, 1914, and 929 in SMP, box 44.

6.
     Unidentified subjects and Subject 508 in the long interviews, February 28, 1963, 30, 31, 12, in SMP, box 45, folder 162.

7.
     Long interviews, April 18, 1963, 2, 4, 13, 25, in SMP, box 45, folder 162.

8.
     The man who took part in the condition was Subject 1817, quoted in long interviews, February 28, 1963, 8. Letters in the archives also show that the experimenter took the doorknob off the door until Milgram managed to replace it with one that locked with a key; see SMP, box 1a, folder 3.

9.
     Unidentified subject, long interviews, March 21, 1963, 28, in SMP, box 45, folder 162; Subject 1831, long interviews, February 28, 1963, 14; and Subject 1434 in SMP, box 44.

10.
    Long interviews, April 11, 1963, 9, in SMP, box 45, folder 162.

11.
    Ian Parker, “Obedience,”
Granta
71, no. 4 (2000): 118.

12.
    Martin Orne and Charles Holland, “On the Ecological Validity of Laboratory Deceptions,”
International Journal of Psychiatry
6 (1968): 282–93.

13.
    Milgram wrote that “the experiment is a nerve shattering experience, a reaction that is highly improbable if the subject does not think he is hurting the learner . . . it is clear . . . that the vast majority of subjects accepted the experiment at face validity. A small proportion of subjects do deny that the learner was being hurt; on occasion this denial reflected technical inadequacies of the experimental procedure; other times . . . as denial functions as a primitive defense mechanism, for some.” SMP, box 61, folder 118.

14.
    Taketo Murata’s unpublished analysis is titled “Reported Belief in Shocks and Level of Obedience,” in SMP, box 45, folder 158.

15.
    SMP, box 75, folder 430.

16.
    SMP, box 95, folder 7.

17.
    Milgram kept clippings about the protests, such as “400 Arrested at Johnson’s Restaurant,”
News and Observer
, May 20, 1963, in SMP, box 29, folder 61.

18.
    SMP, box 75, folder 430.

19.
    Unnamed subjects in conversation with Errera, March 21, 1963, 3; April 4, 1963, 30; March 21, 1963, 3; and March 14, 1963, 25, in SMP, box 45, folder 162.

20.
    Milgram,
Obedience to Authority
, 68.

21.
    Martin Orne, “On the Social Psychology of the Psychological Experiment: With Particular Reference to Demand Characteristics and Their Implications,”
American Psychologist
17 (1962): 189–200.

22.
    Subject 2006 in SMP, box 44.

23.
    Unidentified subjects, long interviews, April 4, 1963, 2, 21, 27, in SMP, box 45, folder 162.

24.
    Milgram,
Obedience to Authority
, 68.

25.
    Tapes 2321, 2331, and 2333, in SMP, box 153.

26.
    Quoted in Alan Astrow, “A Shocker: Milgram Dispute Survives,”
Yale Daily News
, May 1, 1974, in SMP, box 21, folder 340.

6. THE SECRET EXPERIMENTS

1.
     I would subsequently find that three other scholars had found and written about this condition. The first to do so were Andre Modigliani and François Rochat in “The Role of Interaction Sequences and the Timing of Resistance in Shaping Obedience and Defiance to Authority,”
Journal of Social Issues
51, no. 3 (1995): 107–23.

2.
     Tape 2425, in SMP, box 147.

3.
     These were subjects 2428, 2422, and 2435. The uncle and father both played the role of teacher.

4.
     Transcript based on that in Nestar Russell, “Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority Experiments: Towards an Understanding of Their Relevance in Explaining Aspects of the Nazi Holocaust,” PhD thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 2009, 148, 149.

5.
     SMP, box 152.

6.
     Ibid.

7.
     Ibid.

8.
     Tape 2432, in SMP, box 153.

9.
     Exchange between Thomas, Williams, and Milgram, and Milgram’s comments, in SMP, box 70, folder 289.

10.
    Exchange between Carl, Williams, and Milgram; Williams’s comments; and Milgram’s comments in ibid.

11.
    Exchange between Peter and Williams, and Williams and Milgram joking, in ibid.

12.
    Report to the NSF in SMP, box 45, folder 160; obedience notebook in box 46, folder 146; and draft description in SMP, box 70, folder 289. Quotations from Stanley Milgram,
The Individual and the Social World: Essays and Experiments
(Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1977), 153.

13.
    SMP, box 70, folder 289.

7. MILGRAM’S STAFF

1.
     Thomas Blass,
The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram
(New York: Basic, 2004), 325.

2.
     Nestar Russell, “Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority Experiments: Towards an Understanding of Their Relevance in Explaining Aspects of the Nazi Holocaust,” PhD thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 2009, 183.

3.
     Ibid, 183.

4.
     Williams’s response and Milgram’s notes in SMP, box 46, folder 163.

5.
     Stanley Milgram,
Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View
(London: Tavistock, 1974), 97.

6.
     SMP, box 152.

7.
     Bob McDonough, “Shocking!”
Derailed
, March 24, 2006, hbobby
derailed.blogspot.com/2006/03/shocking.html

8.
     SMP, box 46, folder 174.

9.
     Nestar Russell noted this in “Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority Experiments.”

10.
    Long interviews, March 21, 1963, 59–60, in SMP, box 155a.

11.
    Subject 603, long interviews, February 28, 1963, 6, 25–26, in SMP, box 155a.

12.
    Tape 2321, in SMP, box 53.

13.
    Alex Gibney, dir.,
The Human Behavior Experiments
, Fearful Symmetry, 2006.

14.
    SMP, box 46, folder 163.

8. IN SEARCH OF A THEORY

1.
     Long interviews, April 18, 1963, 19–20, in SMP, box 155a.

2.
     Long interviews, April 4, 1963, 45, in SMP, box 155a.

3.
     Long interviews, March 28, 1963, 7, in SMP, box 155a.

4.
     Eichmann and trial preparations discussed in Jeffrey Shandler,
While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 83–132.

5.
     David Cesarani,
Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial of a “Desk Murderer”
(New York: Da Capo Press, 2006), 257, 313.

6.
     Jeffrey Shandler noted the first use of the term “the Holocaust” on American television (83) and the American portrayal of Eichmann (108) in
While America Watches
.

7.
     SMP, box 43, folder 127.

8.
     Kirsten Fermaglich,
American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares: Early Holocaust Consciousness and Liberal America, 1957–65
(Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2006), 89.

9.
     SMP, box 1a, folder 3.

10.
    Stanley Milgram’s article was “Behavioral Study of Obedience,”
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
67, no. 4 (1963): 371–78; quotations on this and preceding page, 371, 377, 375.

11.
    Susan Sontag quoted in Shandler,
While America Watches
, 121.

12.
    SMP, box 46, folder 164.

13.
    Thomas Blass,
The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram
(New York: Basic), 114.

14.
    SMP, box 1a, folder 3.

15.
    Letter from APA in SMP, box 231a, folder 4. Letter to Mann in SMP, box 1a, folder 4.

16.
    Milgram’s Jewish background is discussed in Fermaglich,
American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares
, 97, 100. His bar mitzvah speech is described in Blass,
Man Who Shocked the World
, 8.

17.
    Philip M. Taylor,
Munitions of the Mind: A History of Propaganda from the Ancient World to the Present Day
, 3rd ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), 261. The Chinese, it was mistakenly believed, had developed sophisticated techniques—derived in part from Pavlovian conditioning—to take over the mind, allowing them to replace one set of thoughts with another and convince people who had been enemies to become ardent followers.